Alphabet Streets - Beginning & Ending With Lines From Louis - Z -, His - A - Tome [new Version From 2010 Version] Poem by Warren Falcon

for Louis Zukofsky

'O framar of
the starry circle'

O what is the
name, lost perhaps,
of he, the old jew,
who once sharpened
all our knives?

*

THIS OUR LIFE

SOME FEW RETURN
TO HEAR/SEE
EVIDENCE —

THE NATURE OF
A CITY IS TO
CONTINUALLY
ERASE ITSELF

*

O Shapener of
the duller blade
turning
hammers
sickles
WORKERS
everywhere

their

bricks,

straw,

verse:

The breast,
naturally, of
Woman is
bread before
was bread,
the child loaf
swell in Her
arms to farm
& from such
frame a world.

Thus

Labor.

Bread,

History.

Child's toil,
unspoiled,
forms a
culture beast,

crawls forth,
makes bread
of soil native
& other -

a Mother
culture
all & still,

everywhere.

*

History before was brunch
ever in the world. Sunday.
Avenue C. Door open to
sun

(it)

do
saunter

wanderers hum lullaby
now 'arm in arm' as they
goes''

just past,

every lover's
corner's a pose,

East Eight Street,
where-at-or-on the
Rosenbergs specter
're still chain bound,
abandoned, run over,
bleeding ink into
Avenue C's illegible
scroll black, knee/
kneel, rather

(black)

evokes schtetl's (only one
lone vowel, consonant-enjambed)
horse drawn vender's
runner-about cart heaves
vegetable grief, dark out,

now returns to

synagogue-alley dead-end

where what
is left out
of dirge
carves
into brick
with knives'
daylong
silver

(is)

the Jew-beard

(does)

spark, fill
childrens's awe

tefillin trace-metals
splinter-steel
leven-falls

(grim)

pushes he of
leaden cart,

(its)

spokes handmade,
wheels-wooden,
tongues'-leather
lifetime of bitter
herbs' old seeing

(who dreamed it
once, ages, up?)

a shaping art

or 'new it up' [Z]
outwith
forth-
for hind-
or other-
sight

(bush)

heat lightning
render new light

comes a sunder

strike each eye/ear

torn/turn toward

whatever century's

year may say

(may/might)

yield,

a

midrash

make:


'O framar of
the starry circle'

O what is the lame,
lost perhaps, he
who once
sharpened
all our knives,
the old Jew?

THIS OUR LIFE
SOME FEW RETURN
TO HEAR/SEE

EVIDENCE OF A
CITY'S NATURE
TO CONTINUALLY
ERASE ITSELF

SO Z. ENDS

IN 'A' HE say:

'...What wer, what be, what
shall bifall..how found knowe
Suche forme..wiche knowes not
shape? As oft the running
stile In sea paper leue,
Some printed lettars..marke haue
none at all..But a
passion..sturs The myndz forse
while body liues, What light
the yees..bit, Or sound
in ear...strike.'**

*

TRANSLATED

'...What were, what be, what
shall befall..how found know
Such form..which knows not
shape? As oft the running
still In sea paper leave,
Some printed letters..mark have
none at all..But a
passion..stirs The mind's force
while body lives, What light
the eyes..bite, Or sound
in ear...strike.' - Louis Zukofsky